Now That The NSA Has Made It The Norm, Total Surveillance During The Sochi Olympic Games Is No Longer Noteworthy

from the welcome-to-the-(permanent)-olympics dept

Tue, Jan 21st 2014 3:40am — Glyn Moody

In addition to being an opportunity to stretch copyright and trademark rules way beyond the law, over the years, the Olympics has also become an occasion when the feeble "because terrorism" excuse is deployed to justify all kinds of additional restrictions on personal freedoms. It will come as no surprise to learn that the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Vladimir Putin's pet project, will continue the tradition:

every phone call, every email, every social media message in Sochi will be accessible, traceable by Russia's Federal Security Service -- the FSB -- the organization in charge of securing the Olympics.

The CBC News report quoted above goes on: it's the extent of all the surveillance the FSB is planning that has deepened much of the disquiet, at home and abroad, over the coming games.

For Russia, surveillance measures may be something of a force of habit.
If this piece had been written a year ago, those paragraphs could have been read unironically. But today, in the post-Snowden world, it is impossible not to replace "FSB" with "NSA" or "GCHQ". Since we now know that practically "every phone call, every email, every social media message" in the world -- not just in Sochi -- is accessible to the US authorities, it's as if we find ourselves in a global Olympics lockdown. But unlike the quadrennial Olympics, this particular circus shows no sign of moving on.

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Filed Under: olympics, russia, sochi, surveillance, vladimir putin

22 Comments

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MWL-G, 21 Jan 2014 @ 3:52am

There's a difference
...the Olympics has also become an occasion when the feeble "because terrorism" excuse is deployed to justify all kinds of additional restrictions on personal freedoms.
There's not just an actual clear and present threat of terrorism from Chechens, there have already been deadly acts with more promised by people who don't seem to care about what happened the last time they did this. I'm waiting for reports on the deployment of another FOAB.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2014 @ 4:30am

Re: There's a difference
Screw that, I'm just waiting for the time an ICBM is fired because of 'perceived threat'.
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JCDavis, 21 Jan 2014 @ 4:50am

Those words on the statute of Liberty
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free--
thanks to our government, that is no longer just a description of the old world, but also of the new.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2014 @ 4:56am

Re: There's a difference
There is a huge difference between monitoring suspected terrorists, and monitoring everybody. Foreigners talking to, and meeting with Russian political activists, such as Pirate party supporters could be dangerous for their health.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2014 @ 5:05am

every phone call, every email, every social media message in Sochi will be accessible, traceable by Russia's Federal Security Service -- the FSB -- the organization in charge of securing the Olympics.

This is where code caves come in handy because it's extremely hard to detect.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2014 @ 5:15am

Re: Re: There's a difference
Maybe there should be a sign:

ATTENDING OR PARTICIPATING IN THE SOCHI OLYMPICS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR LONG-TERM HEALTH.
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Matthew A. Sawtell, 21 Jan 2014 @ 5:17am

Yet for all of the security, if an incident was to occur...
Yet for all of the security, if an incident was to occur, it would prove yet again that all of human endeavors are not infallible.
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Just Sayin', 21 Jan 2014 @ 5:36am

replace
replace it with McD and you can have a burger with it.

Stretch much? Trying too hard? Did Mike give you an order as to how many NSA hater-aid stories you had to write this month?

Seriously, not everything is NSA.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2014 @ 7:19am

This reminds me of that vacant old house (The World) on every block in America that gets the label of having Ghosts (terrorists) .. what it boils down to in the end is an over active imagination, and older kids scaring the collective poop out of their younger more naive siblings.
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Ninja (profile), 21 Jan 2014 @ 7:45am

Re: Yet for all of the security, if an incident was to occur...
It can happen any time anywhere regardless of how insanely strict security becomes. The question is how can such people be dissuaded from carrying such crimes with a good measure of security, justice and also understanding of the motives. Simply putting on some security theater will solve nothing.
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plaguehush, 21 Jan 2014 @ 8:43am

And yet...
The point in fighting with guerilla-style tactics is not to win a 'war' by killing and maiming your way to victory with superior numbers. It is to cause the enemy to destroy themselves in the panic caused by small, isolated, (comparitively) low impact events. The 'terrorism' comes from the internal response to a guerilla action, not the action itself.

The best defense against this has always been the equivalent of the british "stiff upper lip". A "Keep Calm and Carry On"-style resolve to not let the bastards grind you down. To move on and show that even a bomb-going off in your home town isn't going to change the way your society is, or the way you choose to live your life.

The way the US (and much of the western world) is reacting, they are playing right into the hands of what small guerilla organisations exist. It's our lockdown of our society that is causing us damage, not the guerilla acts themselves.
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Ninja (profile), 21 Jan 2014 @ 8:57am

Re: And yet...
That. Epic comment dear sir/madam.
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Nick (profile), 21 Jan 2014 @ 8:59am

Re: There's a difference
Honestly, I'm actually kind of fine with it in this case. As MWL-G said, there have already been multiple attacks on foreign and civilian targets - possibly at random - in the area BECAUSE of the Olympics. Once they get underway, there are going to be many factors of 10 more people around, making for better targets.

But, this surveillance MUST be temporary. As soon as the threat is over with, and things return to normal, it should be scaled back.

The difference between this period leading up to / including the Olympics and our own situation is CLEAR and PREVIOUS evidence of a threat. Unlike our own, in which we are told to "trust" in the NSA that they need to stay vigilant despite a large, organized attack not having happened for over a decade (Boston was by two guys who did it without massive support from any group).
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Jack, 21 Jan 2014 @ 9:01am

Re:
@AC - I think you just heard the programming term "code cave" and decided to repeat it not knowing what it meant... A code cave is simply a place in memory where run-time generated code is stored. They are also created by compilers between functions for alignment... They don't have anything to do with communications...

Had you said something like "this is where encrypted VPNs come in handy", "steganography is a handy skill to have", that would have made sense...
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John Fenderson (profile), 21 Jan 2014 @ 9:35am

Re: Re: There's a difference
Also, the Russians aren't trying to keep the surveillance a Big Secret.

This is less egregious that the NSA programs if only because of that. Of course, I don't find it any more palatable, but I can avoid it by not going to Sochi (not that that's a risk, anyway, as the Olympics never fail to irritate me under the best of circumstances.) If a place is so dangerous that that level of surveillance is actually necessary, that's a place that people would be very wise to avoid.
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John Fenderson (profile), 21 Jan 2014 @ 9:36am

Re: Re:
But, come on, "code cave" sounds both cool and ominous. Like a geekier Bat Cave!
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Gwiz (profile), 21 Jan 2014 @ 9:53am

Re: Re: Re:
But, come on, "code cave" sounds both cool and ominous. Like a geekier Bat Cave!

Sounds like the basement at any big tech corporation to me.

You know, that dark place downstairs where they keep the really good programmers. They slide pizza under the door every now and then and let them out into the sunlight on weekends to keep them happily coding along.
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krolork (profile), 21 Jan 2014 @ 10:34am

We need a revolution.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2014 @ 4:24pm

Re:
If ghosts could kill.

(now quite possibly now the title of my next album ..so thanks ;)
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@blamer, 21 Jan 2014 @ 4:42pm

to access-trace Vs to surveil
Merely logging all Sochi comms is NOT crime prevention.

Even if it were to dissuade a majority of the would-be crims.

Traceability (and accessibility, with/without warrants) can help the backwards-looking, forensics, prosecutions. Again justice isn't fully dissuasive to the violently criminal.

The key issue is how much it helps the forward-looking. If it saved 1 local's life (or pick a number) was it all worth it? That's surely the nub of our genuine security-privacy disagreements. Is it not??

Moreover, to "surveil" is (historically merely of suspected spies/crims, now of everyone) is to "notice or perceive something and register it as being significant".

Whilst those "somethings" are non-existent or top-secret, then what hope can we have that the NSAs of the world aren't over-reaching into invasions of their citizens' privacy.
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Sheogorath (profile), 21 Jan 2014 @ 8:26pm

Re: Re: Re: There's a difference
Maybe there should be a sign: ATTENDING OR PARTICIPATING IN THE SOCHI OLYMPICS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR LONG-TERM HEALTH IF YOU ARE HOMOSEXUAL.
FTFY.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2014 @ 7:19pm

HOW DARE THEY
How dare the damn Russians have an actual reason to engage in this program!
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